a week ago on wednesday at burnsal bridge

Okay, so this was quite a long time ago but my brother has been hogging the computer since and seeing as though he is currently out I can catch up with all that i have fallen behind with! so the only thing that actually needs posting is the fact that a week ago on Wednesday we went to Burnsal Bridge again for the second time this summer. And this time I brought a real glass fish tank and not the crummy plastic one!

still, first things first! we went for a walk. The first bird I saw was a collard dove which I took a photo of because it was perched so conveniently on a branch.

Since I had caught up with all the other sites specialities last time I was secretly hoping for a kingfisher today. I spotted another of the locals first with a female mandarin duck.

It was whilst I was photographing this that my brother came and told me that my family had found a kingfisher. I went back to try and get some photos. Surprise, surprise! it was on the wrong side of the river leaving me with small blue specs instead of kingfishers in my pictures.

I chased it all morning, up and down the same stretch of river, but id just didn't look like it was going to come to my side of the river for a photo. Look at the photo below and you would see that not coming to my side of the river was a very silly thing to do if your a kingfisher and to be far there were plenty of conveniently placed perches for it.

Then, whilst taking the above photo, It did! It came to my side of the river, about 5m to my left. Perhaps it was my sudden movement of surprise but either way the bird stayed there less than 1 minuet so I got what I got. luckily, for my camera, that ain't bad!

The photo below shows it belting off up river after that...

I continued to follow it but it decided that it wasn't going to give me a second chance but I followed it anyway, after kingfishers are arguably Britain's most stunning bird. I managed to gather quite a few crowds to view the bird and, as I was following it, Many people left feeling pretty pleased with themselves!

After lunch Me and my brother went fishing in our traditional Burnsal pastime. In order to not crack the fish tank, this time we kept the fish in the plastic fish tank and then brought it over to the glass tank to take the photos. see below the equipment that we used for the photos

We managed to bring in quite a haul of fish and I managed to get some great photos if I do say so myself!

Minnows with a bullhead. This time we managed to catch one of the big minnows that evaded us last time!

The minnows. The bottom photo is my favourite.

The bullheads.

There was a decided lack of large loaches in the river and the one we found seemed to be badly damaged. We caught two small ones but they were happy with their new home and as a result did not come to the front but stayed within the murk of the middle where the camera couldn't reach.

After this my mum and dad said they were going to stick around and as a result me and my brother decided to try and catch a crayfish for the tank as there was also a lack of them and a photo of them in the water is something that Had evaded me!

After about rock twenty we caught a real beauty which obediently allowed himself to be caught. sadly though he was less obedient when it came to photos as he would not stay still. I suppose though that he did have perfect reason and right to be scared but the less he moved, the sooner he would be out. eventually I managed to get a few that we acceptable

As you can see this was quite a day and well worth it!

burnsall

meet tank burnsall. i took this old disused fish tank to burnsall today to put the catches in. unfortunatly to float the tank over the river to take the photos-from fish paradise to the camera the tank crashed into a rock and sadly broke. therfore these photos were a race against time.

a lovely millers thumb or bullhead which were plentiful in the river

a very handsome spined loach which were incredibly fast so we used a net that i found. after lucnch we went back in minus the tank and found lots of baby loaches further upstream

heres a photo from the glass looking insiude the tank

the evil signal crayfish have created a reputation for themselves in britian but are massive around here and this was a prize catch.

a cracking photo of a millers thumb from outside the glass. there were 3 in the tank

but the water was running low from the crack as this photo depicts

a better photo of the loach

they look so adorable in an ugly kind of way but these are a menace

but these werent the highlight of the day. we went for a walk after lunch and found nothing, not even the knigsfisher but on the way back i was way ahead of my family and i saw a gull fly upstream. it looked like a herring gull so i thought, i hope it lands upstream so i can get a better view. it did land but looking at it only one thing was different from a herring gull-its legs, yellow! could it be that i finally had the long awaited yellow legged gull!!!! i had no bins so waited for my mum to catch up with bins and sure enough it wasnt a lesser black backed so yesss!!!! i had it my first. but as i ran back for the camera (a fair way i can tell you) it flew off so no pictures. the reason why it flew off was a bit unclear from what my family said. i got a tale of sheep, black headed and greater black backed gulls so i cant really tell. anyway it was a really great bird to tick.

also there today were, in the way off gulls, common gull in force which also has yellow legs, lesser black backed, which also has yellow legs, which turned up as we ate our fish and chips much later. black headed gulls were there in force and a few flyover greater black backeds were there. overall a good day.

other birds were sparse but there was a female mandarin which is normally there and 3 grey wagtails and a juvenile pied milling about on the beach. oystercatchers flew over in trios occasionally. overall a great day.